


Of Adventures with Dragons

by Rainyhart



Category: Christine - Stephen King
Genre: (Arnie might be in a relationship with a dragon), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 11:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16515086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainyhart/pseuds/Rainyhart
Summary: Dennis finds Arnie to be a little different lately.





	Of Adventures with Dragons

**Author's Note:**

> A short work of fiction written with my good friend @itallstartedwithdefenstration as a collaboration challenge with an alternative universe we recently thought up. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

The sun set quietly behind the cave occupied by Arnie and Christine, blanketing the surroundings in a sheet of dark by the time Dennis found himself finally approaching the lonesome structure. 

“Are you returning to the village?” 

Arnie didn’t lift his head from where he had it pressed in familiarity against Christine’s flank. With his eyes half shut against the glow of the fire she’d banked in the built-in hearth he looked very nearly as though lit from within, or like a demon, or else just like one of their jewels personified. Barely moving his lips he said, “Not yet. Christine wants me here.” 

For a moment Dennis quietly watched Arnie pet the scales along the protective curl of Christine’s tail, pondering whether to go on or not. When Arnie heard nothing from him after a soft minute he met Dennis’ gaze, questioning silently. 

“Regina asks that you come back by sunrise to assist her with her sales.”

Arnie’s mouth turned down at the corners, mocking. “‘Regina asks-’” He cut himself off, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Regina can wait. I ran that stall for her for five fucking years without any sort of complaining. Now she’s upset because I’m finally growing up and spending time away from the family business.” His fingers tensed against Christine, and she rumbled softly in response, shooting Dennis a look of which he wasn’t very fond of being on the receiving end. “Just because I got a dragon.” 

“At least tell me you’ll be coming back for Winter Heartwarming.” Dennis spoke quietly, suddenly feeling very distant from his friend as he sat warm and comfortable, wrapped up in the comfort of Christine’s loyal and loving protection. “I’m only the messenger here.” 

Briefly Dennis thought of saying more, but the words repressed in his throat, guarded, and swallowed thickly back to where they lay heavy at his heart. Arnie watched him, head tilted slightly to the side, looking very like -- well, like a dragon, like Christine, which Dennis supposed was the point to begin with. After a moment Arnie let out a breath, stretched his limbs a little -- Dennis remembered the way they felt around him, the straining corded muscle. He wondered distantly if he’d ever have a chance to experience that again. 

“I don’t know, Den,” Arnie said, and Dennis would’ve believed he sounded uncaring if there hadn’t been that strange and dull flatness in his eyes which he’d harbored since meeting Christine, something like nearly shining in the backs of them, like the shimmering pearlescent glow of Christine’s own ochre slits. “I’ll have to see, it depends on how I feel about all -- “ he waved his hand, vaguely -- “all that shit. Winter Heartwarming.” He scoffed a little. “It sounds so cheesy, doesn’t it?” 

“It _wasn’t._ ” Dennis said hotly. “I had thought we both enjoyed it even as recent as last year.”  
As tradition went, the village would gather in the center circle for a night of being together with the company of family. The warmth from the fire added to the promise of a hot cooked meal under the stars was always something everyone would look forward to participating in annually.It was something Dennis looked forward to participating in at least, if not for the way Arnie had just spoken of it. A faded image of them sharing a leg of elk as they huddled together with only the entertainment of the figures in the stars flicked somewhere in the back of his head.

Something flickered momentarily in Arnie’s expression. Slight and quick, but Dennis caught it. 

“Is this about Repperton?” 

Arnie bit his lower lip -- flash of teeth, catching at the dry skin. Dennis wanted to place his thumb there. Christine snarled softly, and Arnie shifted against her. “No,” he mumbled, but he wouldn’t meet Dennis’ gaze, staring instead at his slender hands, the ragged nails bitten in and torn bloody by his thumbs. Dennis breathed out, slow. Patience, he tried to remind himself; it had only been ten months since things had started turning around for Arnie, really, and sometimes Dennis felt as though Arnie saw himself as standing on the edge of a precipice, unbalanced, off-center, like the tightrope walkers who sometimes came through their village for entertainment. 

Still, Dennis found himself biting his tongue in an act of irritation, unsure of how to approach the topic further. Buddy Repperton was a recent spark of argument and jealousy for them both. Even with his recent move two villages over the spirit of his presence haunted only the mind of Arnie, filling him effortlessly with an aura of loathing for the past shell of a relationship Buddy shared with Dennis in their early childhood. 

“Buddy doesn’t live in the village anymore,” Dennis tried. “You won’t have to see him.”

Arnie looked thoughtful again, and gently ran his hand over a scattered pile of coins on the cave floor. 

“I still see him, like everywhere,” he said, while the coins shifted and fell under his fingers like so many bright stars. “Like at my stall, where he used to harrass me every morning on the way to his work, or by his old hut, where his cousins still do -- whatever it is they do, or…” He trailed off, biting his lip again, rubbing the back of his neck. Momentarily he’d met Dennis’ eye but he dropped his gaze yet again and his voice was barely audible when he said, “Or out by Dragon Point, where I know he tried to kiss you the day you saw the dragon. The day we met.”

Dennis looked to Christine for a sign, perhaps a flash of emotion like he knew Arnie to see, and got a snort in return. 

_Unhelpful._ Dennis frowned.

“You have us now.” Dennis said, and when that didn’t work, “You have Christine now. She’s stronger than any dragon I’ve seen, even at Dragon Point, but you know that.”

Arnie gave him a hard look then, unreadable. “I’m not worried about Christine’s safety,” he said, tightly, though something about the line of his eyebrows, or else just the set of his mouth, betrayed that he wasn’t entirely telling the truth. “Of course she’s stronger than any dragon within one hundred miles of here.”

Christine gave a pleased rumble and Arnie let his eyes fall half-shut. 

“I just don’t like being in the village,” he said, finally. “It makes me feel like I’m regressing.” 

Again Dennis remembered the feeling he got, like Arnie was standing on the edge of something very tall and unstable. Sometimes Dennis caught himself imagining Arnie with wings of his own, sprouting from his back since the day he woke up to the dragon’s reflective scales in his face. They spread ever so slightly every morning that he found himself awake in the ever present guarded protection of Christine, and welcomed power with every stretch he gave, itching for more the longer he stayed present in the dark dwelling. 

“Regressing…” Dennis echoed quietly, but it sounded more like a question. 

“Back to…” Arnie gestured at himself, his face, his hair -- everything that had changed in the subtle minute ways since he’d met and fallen in with Christine. “I couldn’t see, I couldn’t do shit for myself. Regina was controlling every aspect of my life. Being there makes it all come back. And so does thinking of fucking Repperton. I don’t want that.” 

“Arnie…” Dennis said, and Christine’s distaste be damned, found himself stepping closer. “Whatever you want to do, I’m there.” 

Between them Christine’s tail curled tighter towards Arnie. Coins piled at their feet around them enough that Dennis could step on one of the gathered hills to place his hands on Arnie’s face. An annoyed vibrating sound came from Christine then that Dennis ignored. 

“I’m wherever you are.” 

Arnie’s mouth dropped slightly open; Dennis’ thumb slipped from its place on his jaw, skated over his lower lip. His eyes in that flat dead stare moved from one point to another over Dennis’ face. Christine was glaring at Dennis but she wasn’t moving, and Dennis judged it safe to kneel, and to push Arnie’s hair back off his forehead. Arnie breathed out once, sharp unsteady exhale. When he shifted closer to Dennis he saw again the flash of the shadow of the imagined wings, gorgeously upturned and contrasting against Christine’s autumnal scales. 

“Den,” he breathed, and lifted one hand to stroke against the back of Dennis’ own.  
“Yeah,” Dennis whispered against his mouth, and moved in until their lips met. Currents of the power Arnie spoke of religiously in Christine’s vicinity jolted through the action, pulling noises from the back of Dennis’ throat without care as it accepted the warmth and tug of Arnie biting at his bottom lip, hands threaded in the cloth at the back of his shirt in an attempt to be even closer. Christine growled softly before turning her head away; Arnie rolled his eyes, huffed out a laugh against Dennis’ mouth. He uncurled his legs so as to lightly hook his ankle against Dennis’; when he pulled away he let his head rest against Dennis’ shoulder, exhaling into the soft material of his shirt there. 

“You come to our cave whenever you want,” he said, “during the party. I can assure you you’ll find far greater and more satisfying entertainment here than elsewhere in the village.” He lifted his other foot to brush against Dennis’ crotch and Dennis exhaled sharply, surprised, laughing as he leaned in again to claim Arnie’s mouth underneath his own. 

Wherever Arnie was, indeed.


End file.
